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Like the 2015 Ford F-150 before it, the new 2017 Ford F-Series Super Duty is moving to a diet of aluminum alloy throughout much of its body – including the cargo box. That contributes to a weight loss of some 350 pounds compared to the outgoing Super Duty, but also makes durability a bit of a concern.

To address the issue, and to ensure that the new Ford Super Duty line of trucks could handle whatever the job might throw at them, Ford’s engineers loaded the new F-Series Super Duty‘s cargo box with all manner of common aftermarket equipment, and drove the truck over a variety of harsh surfaces. That included pothole-marked durability courses and offroad terrain, at Ford’s Michigan Proving Grounds.

Tested cargo box equipment ranged from glass racks, to salt spreaders, to ATV platforms. Even after overloading the Super Duty cargo box with some of the aforementioned equipment, and after multiple runs over the rough terrain, engineers found no concerning wear on either the mounting surfaces or supporting structure.

“Ford Super Duty customers depend on their trucks to work hard every day across a variety of jobs,” said Ford Vehicle Integration Engineer Kirk Leonard. “Our team of vehicle integration engineers worked together to develop a unique design approach with the Ford Truck Body Engineering team to drive optimized panel shape, added reinforcements and up-gauged materials into the pickup box – all of which were proved beneficial in our evaluation.”

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— Aaron Brzozowski

Aaron Brzozowski is a writer and motoring enthusiast from Detroit with an affinity for '80s German steel. He is not active on the Twitter these days, but you may send him a courier pigeon.